The consequences of the crisis on private equity and venture capital have spurred new forms of SMEs financing, based on partnership between public and private sectors. Internationally, the two sectors cooperate intensively through the fund of funds instruments. In Italy, a new investment fund...

Using a dataset including more than 6,000 Italian small firms over the period 2010-2012, we find an higher credit growth rate for companies that employ Ict in a more widespread and sophisticated way. This may be related to the improvement of the transparency of small businesses connected with...

The literature that examines target prices issued by equity research analysts is vast, and the role of the analytical process and valuation model used to determine target prices has received growing attention by scholars. However, the specific evidence that indicates how professional analysts...

In recent years, many companies, also in the banking sector, are adopting more developed operational risk management models, responding to the logic of a rational business growth and in line with their risk appetite

The on-going asset-quality review process implemented by the European Central Bank may seriously affect the possibility of easing bank credit. This paper examines debt and profitability of firms in the four major countries of the Euro area, using data available in Bach database from 2000 to...

Multiple lending relationships, largely common in Italian markets, are a practice that should evolve towards lesser fragmentation and an improvement of credit evaluation

Cooperative banking has produced, in more than a century, significant value in terms of proximity to clients and local communities. A governance reform is now necessary to solve interest conflicts and redefine the cooperative model in the present scenario

The Basel Agreements, designed to pursue financial stability, have been instead a cause of instability, revealing fundamental analytical and operational weaknesses. The idea to define a constant capital ratio through complex statistical models implies serious dangers. A radical change is...

Small and medium-sized enterprises’ financial reporting is generally inefficient and can be improved by a wider use of XBRL. In particular it could be useful to create a web platform for financial reporting documents to enhance the benefits of XBRL in all enterprises

Do rating models embody correctly the impact of macroeconomic variables on debtors’ solvency, determining a lag in downgrading? In pre-crisis periods, when interest rates increases are recorded as well as decreases in real growth rates, rating assessments fail to register risk increases in...